by Marc Turner
A creak sounded as Veran rose from the oar-bench, followed by a snap of canvas as he trimmed the sail. Karmel sought to put him from her mind, but his words from earlier came back to her. Maybe I’d like to know just what it is I’m supposed to be fighting for now. All this talk of uncertainty in Caval’s leadership, of lost faith in the direction the priesthood was taking, was no more than a smoke screen, Karmel knew. His real motives for leaving the temple would be far less noble. Perhaps he’d enjoyed greater privileges under the old regime than the new, or perhaps he had seen himself as a more worthy successor to Pennick than Caval.
History had proved him wrong. Caval’s association with Imerle had opened up countless opportunities for the advancement of the Chameleon order, yet there would always be those among the priesthood—the meek, the small-minded—who lacked the vision to see those chances for what they were. Who had grown comfortable in their laziness and now resisted change because they feared losing their influence to younger, more ambitious colleagues. Colleagues more deserving of basking in the god’s favor.
Colleagues like Karmel, perhaps.
Or maybe Veran’s problem was simpler. Maybe he’d been so long at the sharp end of the Chameleon’s dealings with his enemies that he’d lost his nerve.
When she suggested as much to Veran, he grunted and said, “You ever killed a man before?”
Karmel held her pose for another heartbeat, then lowered her right leg and raised her left. Off the port bow a school of silverfins flitted through the foam-specked water. “Of course.” The first time had been last year when a gang of deadbeats had insulted the temple by scrawling graffiti over its walls. Karmel had been among those sent to hunt them down.
“Not with those pretty throwing knives of yours. Up close, so you could see the whites of his eyes.”
“I’ve defeated enough opponents in my training at the temple. I see no reason why the real thing should be any less easy.”
“You better hope it never gets easy.”
Karmel sensed a lecture coming. She got enough of those in the temple. “Was it easy when you silenced that fisherman yesterday?”
“No easier, I reckon, than when you killed that boy in the duel to become Honorary Blade.”
Karmel started, almost losing her balance. “You were there?” The contest for the privilege of carrying the Chameleon’s sword had taken place at the temple three months ago—after Veran had left the priesthood—so what had he been doing there?
Veran said, “Others might think it was a mistake when you crushed the lad’s windpipe with that thrust, but you had your blade well enough under control before then. What was the matter, girl? Did he forget to stain his knees before you when you took up your positions?”
Karmel kept her expression even. The episode was one she’d tried hard to forget, but now she saw again the closing exchanges of the duel, pictured Vallans’s face turning blue as he clawed at his throat. More clearly, though, she remembered the stink of his body when his bowels opened. She hadn’t been able to get the smell out of her nose for days. No doubt in Vallans’s final moments he’d regretted the taunts he’d whispered to her as they touched their wooden blades at the start of the fight, as well as his attempts to intimidate her in the days leading up to the contest. Afterward his family had accused her of killing him deliberately, but it was an accusation Karmel had always denied. And it had been a misjudgment, hadn’t it? She would never have slain him on purpose. When she spoke to Veran she tried to sound offhand. “Even the best swordsmen make mistakes. Even the best.”
The priest grunted.
“You question my abilities?” she said, angry again. It seemed Veran had a gift for bringing out the worst in her.
“Sparring ain’t the same as fighting.”
Karmel had heard those words a dozen times from a dozen of her fellow priests and priestesses, yet if Veran and those others thought they were better than Karmel, why had they not entered the contest? “I’m the youngest Chameleon ever to become Honorary Blade. Even my brother fears to face me.”
“I’ve seen your brother fight. He would cut you into strips.”
“Of course he would.” Karmel lowered her leg. “That’s why he turns me down every time I ask to spar with him.” Tucking her shirt into her trousers, she bent down to place her hands on the prow and swung her legs up into a handstand. Blood rushed to her head.
“Get down from there,” Veran snapped. “We’re supposed to be fishermen, not Shroud-cursed acrobats.”
Karmel ignored him. “In any case, I hardly think someone with as many scars as you is in any position to judge another swordsman’s skill.”
“Those scars were earned. Every one is a fight I’ve walked away from.”
“A fight in which your defenses were breached, you mean. Do you see any scars on me?”
“One for each scrap you’ve been in,” Veran muttered.
Karmel pretended she hadn’t heard. Did the fool really think she was green just because she hadn’t been knocked about like he had? Did he believe his scars were some badge of honor—
The boat lurched to the left, and the priestess found herself toppling forward. Tightening her grip on the prow, she arched her back in an effort to restore her balance, but to no avail. Her fall was going to land her in the path of the boat, so she pushed off with both hands and twisted to the right. She hit the sea on her back and took a half breath before the cool, sun-bright waves closed around her, filling her ears with watery silence.
She resurfaced, spluttering, off the starboard beam and draped her arms over the gunwale.
Veran watched from the oar-bench. His face was impassive, but Karmel could swear there was a twinkle in his eye as he said, “Sorry, girl, hand must have nudged the tiller by mistake. Even the best sailors, and all that.”
* * *
The door to Enli Alapha’s offices was made of glass, but then a man who represented assassins had little need to worry about thieves, Kempis supposed. Pushing the door open, he entered a reception area dominated by a desk so high it resembled a bar at an inn. Behind the desk sat a middle-aged woman with immaculately coiffured hair and the longest nose Kempis had ever seen. As he entered with Sniffer, the woman looked them up and down as if she’d just scraped them off the sole of her sandal.
“Good evening,” she said.
Kempis strode to a door on his left.
“Excuse me, sir! Excuse me!”
The septia entered the room beyond and found himself in an office lit by torches set into wall niches. Behind a desk at the far end sat an old man—Enli Alapha, Kempis assumed—wearing a robe trimmed with flintcat fur. The merchant’s eyes were a blue so pale the irises were almost indistinguishable from the whites. A beard jutted from his chin, and a mole sprouted from the left side of his nose. He was writing with a quill pen in a leather-bound book.
The office was blessedly cool after the sapping night heat. Judging by the trace of sorcery in the room, an air-mage had been employed to keep the air circulating. The office was filled with the smell of exotic spices, but it couldn’t mask a certain whiff of self-righteousness that set Kempis’s nostrils twitching.
The receptionist appeared behind him. Enli Alapha waved her away. He took in Kempis’s uniform and gave a wintry smile. “Can I help you, Watchman?”
“Nice setup you have here,” Kempis said, sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk. He shot a glance at Sniffer, who had trailed him inside. “Didn’t know there was so much money in spices.”
The Untarian nodded. “The man must be making a killing,” she said.
Kempis frowned. “I make the jokes round here.”
“You do? I hadn’t noticed.”
Enli’s smile had not wavered. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
Kempis ignored the unspoken question. No Duffle here to give his name away. There was a row of glass containers on the desk, each containing a different spice. The septia lifted the nearest and sniffed its content
s through the holes in the top, then winced as he recognized the smell of blayfire. He put the container down. “I’m looking for a client of yours,” he said to the merchant.
“Indeed? Alas, you appreciate my clients expect from me the highest levels of confidentiality. Since I am a member of the Merchant’s Guild, though, certain details of my contracts are kept at the Round.”
“Yes, they are, aren’t they? As it happens I’ve spent a night and a day going through your records. Fascinating stuff.” Kempis took a roll of parchment from his cloak and tossed it onto the desk. “You know what really bugs me?”
Enli steepled his hands. “I’m on tenterhooks.”
“Anolamies.”
“Anomalies?”
“Them too. Take, for example, a cargo of ganda spice from Palana Utara. Thirty thousand imperial sovereigns’ worth, to be precise. Is this ringing any bells?” He gestured to the parchment. “Hamilla, your buyer was called. Placed the contract with you last year, on the eve of Dragon Day. You signed an endorsement to say you’d got his silver, but here’s the strange thing: when I checked the harbor log to see when the spices arrived in Olaire, I found no record of the ship carrying them ever docking.”
Enli went back to writing in his book. “Clearly a mistake on the part of the harbormaster. Since the buyer paid for the spices, it seems fair to assume the cargo arrived, wouldn’t you agree?”
“So I told my colleague here,” Kempis said, nodding at Sniffer. “Just to dot the i’s, though, I went to check with your buyer at the address in the contract. And guess what? Seems no one there ever heard of a Hamilla, or of you for that matter.”
Enli gave his wintry smile again. “You’ve got me, Watchman. I confess it. I filed particulars of a contract that didn’t exist in order to overstate my earnings and thus inflate my tax bill. I’m surprised more people aren’t doing it.”
Kempis scowled. That was the problem with being too clever: you started thinking everyone around you was stupid. Evidently Enli was receiving large sums of money for brokering deals on behalf of his assassin clients and disguising the payments as fees for nonexistent spice cargos. It seemed no one had had cause to question the legitimacy of those fees before now, and Kempis suspected the irregularities would never have come to light but for Inneez’s tip-off. It had taken the septia the best part of a day to find even one suspicious dealing among dozens of regular transactions.
The blayfire Kempis had sniffed was making his nostrils feel like they were on fire. He sneezed into a sleeve. Enli withdrew a handkerchief from a pocket and passed it to him. The septia dabbed at his nose. In response to the merchant’s earlier words he said, “Oh, I reckon the contracts existed. What I ain’t clear on is exactly what you were paid for.”
Sniffer had crossed to the wall on Kempis’s right. It was filled from floor to ceiling with drawers. Pulling one open, she withdrew a card.
“Of course,” Kempis went on, “could be a perfectly innocent explanation for all this. Does make me wonder, though, how many more inconsistencies I might find if I kept digging.”
Enli’s pen paused over his book. His gaze flickered to Sniffer but his expression said “cold, cold,” as in a children’s game, so either the Untarian was looking in the wrong place or the merchant had figured out she couldn’t read.
Kempis raised his voice. “Perhaps you should work your way down from the top,” he said to Sniffer. “You know, start with the ones hardest to reach.”
Enli put his quill pen in its ink pot, then scratched the mole on his nose. “You never said how I could help you.”
“I need to make a problem go away—”
“I share your sentiments.”
“And I’m reliably informed you’re the man who can help.”
“Informed by whom?”
Kempis did not reply. The heat in his nostrils was becoming more intense. “Any of your … clients Drifters, by any chance?”
“Somehow I doubt a Drifter could afford my services.”
Sniffer closed a drawer and opened another. “What about clients with interests in the Shallows?”
Enli shrugged. “Spices are a popular commodity. You can’t expect me to know everyone in the trade.”
“Ah,” Kempis said, “but I’m talking about a very particular person.” He thought back to Colm Spicer’s account of how the assassin had vanished after killing the Drifter. “Someone who is also skilled at making problems … disappear.”
“I’m sure if I had such a client I would know.”
Kempis looked at Sniffer. “You see that?”
“Sure did.”
Enli’s eyes narrowed. “See what?”
“My point exactly,” Kempis said. “The way I look at it, if there were someone new to the game out there—someone working your patch—you should be twisting my arm to find out more. And yet you don’t even bat an eyelid.”
The merchant’s expression gave nothing away. “Let us imagine for the sake of argument that I do have a client with an interest in the Shallows. How do you think such an individual would react to your taking an interest in their interest?”
Kempis looked at Sniffer. “That sound like a threat to you?”
“Sure did.”
The old man tugged at the hairs on his mole. “Of course, I would never presume to make threats to a Watchman, but again, for the sake of argument, if I were to do so, do you doubt I would be able to make good on them?”
The septia bared his teeth. “And do you doubt someone would come looking for payback if you did?”
“Just as there would be repercussions if I were to compromise the privacy of a client.”
Kempis’s nose was running, and he blew a thunderous blast into Enli’s handkerchief. “I ain’t interested in your damned client—I know who she is already,” he lied. “I ain’t even interested in you, hard though that must be on your ego. I want to know who’s paying your bill.”
“Ah, you want the next up in the food chain.”
“If you like.” The septia offered the merchant back his handkerchief.
Enli regarded it with a raised eyebrow. “But that’s the problem, isn’t it? The next up in the food chain is invariably a bigger fish.”
“Then you’ll just have to find another pond to swim in. Either way, your client’s actions stop now, understood?”
“I have no way of contacting—”
“Understood?”
Enli pursed his lips.
Kempis had to admire the old man’s composure. Usually with bluebloods, once you stripped away the bluster you found precious little underneath. The merchant was made of sterner stuff. He’d break eventually, though. They all did. “I’ll leave you to think things over,” Kempis said, rising from his seat.
Enli blinked. Obviously he’d been expecting to continue their conversation at the Watchstation, but Kempis reckoned the old man had said as much as he was going to say. Let him think he’d been given a reprieve. Let him think he had an opportunity to put his house in order before the septia came calling again. When he made his next move, Kempis would be waiting.
He gestured to Sniffer and made for the door.
Outside, he headed for the nearest alley that offered a view of the merchant’s offices. Sniffer drew up beside him.
“What are you playing at, sir?” she said. “Ain’t no way he’s gonna sell out his employer. If we brought him in—”
“He’d clam up tight as Hilaire’s asshole. Then what would we do? We can prove he’s received dodgy payments, but we can’t prove what they’re for. This way, if we’re lucky, he may do something stupid—like try to warn the assassin we’re on to her.” It wasn’t as if Kempis had any other cards up his sleeve. Loop had drawn a blank in trying to find out what magic the killer was using, and Sniffer had failed to track down a single witness to the murders of the first two Drifters.
“And if you’re wrong?” Sniffer nodded toward Enli’s offices. “Lot of torches in that room, sir. Maybe he’s in there now fee
ding the evidence to the steam-maker.”
From his vantage point Kempis could make out the window to the old man’s office. Perhaps it was his imagination, but the light inside did appear to brighten suddenly. “You think he’s got a card in there with all his shady contacts written out on it? Addresses too, maybe?”
Sniffer pressed on. “You still carrying them stripes in your pocket? Maybe you should ask the merchant to add them—”
“You got something useful to say, let’s hear it,” Kempis cut in. “Until then, put a bung in it.”
* * *
“Is it much farther?” Agenta asked, feeling six years old again.
The boatman, Enix, spat into the water. “Nearly there.”
The kalischa eyed him speculatively. He’d said the same thing quarter of a bell ago, and she suspected he was taking a deliberately circuitous route through the flooded alleys to stop her retracing her steps later. Not that there was any chance of that: there were no landmarks in the Deeps that Agenta could fix on, and with the place shrouded in darkness, each building looked much the same as the next.
Barely a breath of wind ruffled the water. The noise and color of the Shallows had faded behind, and all was quiet but for the splash of Enix’s oar, the creak of the boat, the buzzing of the needleflies and salt-stingers. Ahead the street was blocked by a collapsed building, so the boatman steered his craft into a side alley so narrow the gunwales scraped the walls. Just visible above the water was a net draped between two houses. Enix lifted his oar and used a blade on its end to saw through the lines holding the net in place. As it floated free, Agenta saw a severed arm in its links.
Stretching out her legs, she tried to make herself comfortable. If anyone was watching from the rooftops, let them see she wasn’t overawed by her impending meeting with the Gadfly’s hijackers. To the contrary, she was looking forward to the encounter. It was said tollen deadened the mind such that users had to take risks in order to extract any color from life. That wasn’t what drove Agenta, though—she had long since freed herself of the drug’s effects. No, her rationale was simpler. When Shroud could crush you underfoot at any time, what use was there in trying to hide from him? Would her brother have been spared the fever if he’d cowered behind a wall somewhere?